The Thin Line
by Sakon76
Summary: Jazz is dangerous. Prowl controls him.
1. The Thin Line

The Thin Line  
by K. Stonham  
first released 1st April 2008

There was a thin line, Jazz thought hazily. A thin line between being an Autobot and being a Decepticon. They were almost like the two facets of a plane. Like the two sides of a coin, as the humans would have it.

That thin line, that _difference_, was composed of the razor-sharp contrast between two philosophies: that all sentient beings had rights, the creed of the Autobots, and that might made right, the creed of the Decepticons.

But hold as close to that philosophy as they could, most of the Autobots--himself included--had moments of staring too long into the void. Jazz could do almost anything, get away with almost anything, and sometimes the knowledge that he _shouldn't_ was an awfully flimsy leash.

He breathed half a bitter laugh and regretted it as soon as he did, drawing attention back to himself like that.

Soft footsteps, nearly silent, the source of the other bot's name, crossed the room back to him. "Have something to say, Jazz?" that other inquired impassively. Unmoved. Mutely, Jazz shook his head. "Good," Prowl replied. The slightest smile, not kind, crossed his mouth. "Because if I recall correctly, the last time you made a noise, you didn't care for what the duct tape did to your finish afterward." Jazz nodded again, still muting his vocalizer. Prowl dipped his fingers into Jazz's open chest panel, drawing a crackle of blue from the spark just above his laser core as Jazz bucked, holding on with everything he was worth just not to scream.

Wordlessly, silently, Prowl drifted away again, leaving Jazz throbbing with pleasure and pain and the need for relief or darkness. Leaving him to control himself. He did so slowly, agonizingly, cursing Prowl as virulently within the confines of his CPU as he dared not do aloud.

He wasn't a _toy_. He was dangerous. And that, Jazz had concluded, was what made Prowl get off on this. Screw Sideswipe and Sunstreaker, or even the Dinobots; the lot of them you knew were angry and dangerous. You could hear them coming a thousand klicks away. Jazz, though... Jazz was Death incarnate. He could smile and joke with you one minute and slit your energon lines the next. He had in the past, to Decepticons and traitors to the Autobot cause. He would again in a pump-beat. It was the nature of his job. It was the nature of Ops. Nothing personal.

Prowl made it personal. He long had, enjoying being a needle that pierced through Jazz's disregard for things Optimus would consider sacred. Jazz walked that line; Prowl tethered him, barely, to one side. Like a turbo-wolf leashed on a titanium chain.

Prowl, in turn, enjoyed knowing that the power he held in check could turn on him any second. Whether he knew that Jazz knew or not, Jazz didn't particularly care. But Jazz had dug, and he'd looked, and he'd asked, and he knew exactly why the tactician was so cold, why he didn't care about anything. Prowl'd lost everything when his city was razed. The few survivors of his clan had eventually drifted to the Autobots as well. For all his gentleness with Bluestreak and patience with Smokescreen, though, Prowl could barely stand being in the same room with his distant kin. He didn't trust himself not to hurt them.

He _let_ himself hurt Jazz. And Jazz let Prowl hurt him, because he understood what was beneath the empty logic and the cold numbers and facts Prowl surrounded himself with. He had a holovid, obtained at great difficulty and greater expense, from the ruins of Prowl's hometown. It showed a young bot, surrounded by family, laughing, smiling, optics glowing with happiness. It was a Prowl Jazz had never met.

The Prowl he had wouldn't let himself care for anyone or anything, because he knew too well what it was like to lose everything. The only thing he had left to lose was himself, and sometimes Jazz wondered whether or not what he and Prowl did together was Prowl's version of Russian Roulette. Whether or not this time would be the one that Prowl pushed him too far and he snapped over to that other side.

Except Jazz didn't think so. Because the leash that bound him had its origin in Prowl. It was as thin as spider silk, and maybe just as fragile... but also maybe as strong as a titanium chain. He was something Prowl needed, which meant that somewhere deep and buried in the trauma, Prowl still cared.

And that taste of... whatever it was, was what kept Jazz coming back, and walking Prowl's side of that thin line.


	2. In Control

In Control  
by K. Stonham  
first released 4th April 2008

Prowl was not surprised when Sideswipe gracelessly and rebelliously muttered "Control freak," on his way out of Prowl's office. He didn't call the red twin on the remark and assign him additional punishment for denigration of an officer's reputation. Sideswipe was, for once, being only strictly accurate with his use of human terminology.

Jazz entered the office on the heels of the Lamborghini's departure, with an expressively raised optic ridge which indicated that he'd heard the comment and was surprised Prowl wasn't seeking retaliation for it. Prowl suppressed irritation; he wasn't _petty_ the way Jazz seemed to be expecting him to be.

"Ain't a very nice thing to say," Jazz observed into the silence.

Jazz _pushed_.

"Nice doesn't concern me," Prowl replied.

"Ain't that the truth," Jazz replied, which was also an accurate statement so Prowl let it pass. The saboteur pulled a datapad out of subspace and handed it over. "Mirage's report on his last mission," he explained as Prowl accepted it. "Couldn't find that the 'Cons were up to anything in particular. Maybe they're takin' a vacation."

"Wouldn't that be lovely," Prowl said quietly, allowing just a hint of a daydream to surface: no Decepticon attacks, just managing the Ark crew members, dealing with human dignitaries, and striving to rebuild the Ark and return to Cybertron.... He pushed the thought away, as well as its accompanying observation that sans tactical input, he would be performing the same job Ultra Magnus had been performing so long and so well for the Autobots back on Cybertron. If it wasn't for Prowl's battle computer, it might well have been Magnus on the Ark instead.

Jazz was still waiting needlessly in Prowl's office. "Did you require something?" Prowl asked.

Jazz just looked at him a moment longer, then shook his head. "Nothin' you'd be able to provide," he answered, and turned to leave.

Prowl was left alone.

Again.

His thoughts wandered while he worked, supply lists and rations, conversions of various human currencies, procurements of materials from sundry locations for diverse purposes, rotations of shifts and downtime, double-checking everything, always.

If he'd been more careful, if he'd checked to make sure they were with him instead of blindly bounding into the museum....

He'd have been dead.

But at least he'd have been dead with them.

He'd found out later that Grapple had designed the museum's blast doors to protect the treasures within. They'd certainly worked well enough the day the Decepticons had razed Praxus, and the memory of that was what had led him to recommend to Optimus Prime that the team of Grapple and Hoist be added to the Ark's roster, no matter his personal feelings. It wasn't, after all, Grapple's fault. His structure had worked precisely as he'd designed it to.

Ash and outlines had been all that had been left of his family, his home. There weren't even the burning crystal towers in the distance that Mirage sometimes hauntingly spoke of when he was well and truly overenergized. No, there had been nothing left of Praxus but silence.

No one had expected the attack, so a response, rescuers, were slow to come. He'd probably spent too long alone the way Bluestreak had, Prowl acknowledged much later when he first met the gunner, but they each dealt with it their own way. Bluestreak reached outward for someone to help him; Prowl retreated in, knowing no one would. Of the remaining Praxans, Smokescreen was arguably the most normal. But then, he'd been off-world at the time of the attack.

Eventually Prowl had been picked up by a passing Autobot patrol. He'd been wandering in the ashes, looking for anyone, anything. He'd been starved by then, running on vapors. Another day, another hour, and there might not have been a survivor.

He knew, even then, that there was no way he could have controlled what had happened. All he could do, he knew as he sipped at the tasteless energon the Autobots gave him, was make sure it never happened again.

He was intelligent and rose quickly through the Autobot ranks, quiet and precise. Eventually he ended up as Optimus Prime's right-hand mech, which had been his target position all along. There, he could do something. He could keep people safe. All he had to do was be perfect and not screw up.

It was surprisingly easy. Somewhere in the gray shadows of Praxus, he found, all the pain had been burned out of him. All the passion, all the pleasure... gone. All that was left was a simple logic. No more hurt. Just function.

Optimus never asked. Few did. Those who needed to know also didn't ask. Jazz, though... Jazz _pushed_. Asked when he shouldn't. Kept repeating the questions and the accusations, not letting up. He didn't do it for his own amusement, like Sideswipe would have, or to vent frustration as Sunstreaker would have, but simply because he could. Because he walked at right angles to the rules, treating them and this war like some game that others played. Jazz was uncontrollable, and had no self-control. It made Prime's left-hand mech dangerous, to himself, to others, and to the Autobot cause.

One night on darkened Cybertron, in a private sparring session that had gone on so long they'd lost all their witnesses to their own recharge cycles, Prowl had figured out the way to teach Jazz control.

Jazz was exquisitely responsive, and he _liked_ being hurt. He liked Prowl being the one hurting him, too, smelting together his pleasure and his pain. He kept coming back, learning the rules over and over again each time they slipped his mind and he screwed up. He reacted the way Prowl couldn't; that, too, was something that Prowl had lost, or had stolen from him, or perhaps never had to begin with. In some ways, though, Prowl thought, controlling exactly how the reckless, irresponsible saboteur responded was even better.

And just once in a while Prowl realized that there was a crack running through the cool logic that ruled him. It whispered warmth to him and bled heat and said that he liked teaching the saboteur to obey his rules. He quickly suppressed the feeling of breathlessness that threatened to shatter him. He didn't need it. It wouldn't win this war.

It wouldn't keep him safe.

* * *

Author's Note: If you think you're reading Nagasaki and Hiroshima in here, you are. This is pretty much Prowl's side of the story to Jazz's "The Thin Line."


End file.
